MAY 18 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#16 “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)

 

MAY 18  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#16 

“Why do you also transgress the commandment of God 

because of your tradition?”  

(Matthew 15:3)

LIVING FOR JESUS Daily Prayer    

JESUS, You Lord are worthy to be Praised even if not a single person did so. Your Mercy and Grace are extended to All, believers and non-believers receive Your Blessings and one gives Praise and Thanksgiving and the other rejects the gifts of God, yet acceptance and rejection are no reflection on Your Glory but merely a reflection of who we are.

 Lord forgive me when I think that my thoughts have anything to do with who You really are! What we believe about God is as A. W. Tozer writes to open his book “Knowledge of the Holy”, the “…most important thing about us…” but our “belief” about who God is has no bearing on who God IS nor on God’s Holy Character ——— God IS God because He IS God and His Character is solely determined by what God chooses to reveal about Himself to us and the TRUTH of who He IS, is in no way associated with what we believe about Him!!! 

Lord Jesus, I Praise You because You are Worthy of our Praise.     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has been Teaching the “multitudes” with one style and His disciples with another and I believe 

Jesus Taught according to each ones need 

— because Jesus can use the same event but Teach different Lessons at the same time accordingly to the needs of the one that Jesus is Teaching ——— Jesus is just that good! Jesus proves His consistency and His “Fairness” by always Teaching the 

Truth of God 

and Jesus makes His Lesson personal and intimate or global in nature depending on the needs of His followers. 

JQ#16 is the second time that Jesus has used the term “Hypocrite!” in His Teachings as we see in Matthew 7 that Jesus was Teaching the multitudes that we should not judge others (JQ#4) for if we 

“say to your brother ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye…” 

and miss the “plank” in our own eyes 

then Jesus used the term “Hypocrite!” 

to describe us judging others and overlooking our own faults which in reality is the greater sin in God’s eyes. (see Matthew 7:2-5) and now

 in JQ#16 we see that the 

“scribes and the Pharisees” 

are questioning Him again as to His Lordship 

which is very similar to JQ#7 when the Pharisees 

had questioned Jesus about “lawful” things for the Sabbath 

and Jesus had answered, 

“…the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath’.” (Matthew  12:1-8)  

In the first instance the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was “lawful” for Him and His disciples to pick heads of grain and to eat them on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:1-8) and Jesus answered their question with a definitive Statement about His Lordship and in this instance Jesus does the Pharisees just like He did Peter and turns their question into an indictment on themselves as the Pharisees asked

  

“Why do you transgress the tradition of the elders?” (Matthew 15:2) 

and Jesus turns that back on them and asks

  

JQ#16   “Why do you transgress the commandment of God 

because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)  

When we look at the context of this question we see it is directed strictly to the “legalists” (lawyers and politicians of that age) and was not addressing His Question to the “multitudes” in general, so Jesus has directed His Teaching at a specific group, a powerful group that thought that man’s opinion of the law was greater somehow than God’s own written Law! 

Jesus pointed out that the commandment of 

“Honor thy father and thy mother…” 

had been re-written by the Pharisees so that they could “justify” 

getting around that commandment for the purpose of personal gain! 

Jesus quickly lets His contenders know that

 

changing the commandments of God 

even though it be declared “legal” by a governing body of men

 is a sin in itself! 

Matthew records for the second time in this type of accusation against His Authority that Jesus using the word “Hypocrite!” to describe His accusers!  (see Matthew 7:5) Jesus is in this instance talking about the Pharisees practice of changing God’s Law to suit themselves and again Jesus uses the term “Hypocrites!”. (Matthew 15:7) 

Each time the Pharisees try to trap Jesus using 

their man-made law (the Pharisees interpretation of God’s Law) 

Jesus points out that God’s Law cannot be changed 

nor interpreted any way but the way God said it! 

Jesus makes it perfectly clear with His Question that “your tradition” is wrong 

if it transgresses “the commandment of God”! 

Jesus again quotes the Prophet Isaiah to describe the Pharisees: 

“These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, and in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” 

(Matthew 15:8-9 taken from Isaiah 29:13) 

Jesus has once again taught the specific Lesson needed to what a specific group needed to help them see that there is the 

SINGLE TRUTH set forth by God 

and no amount of “legislation” or “popular outcry” 

from a majority of voters can alter or change in any way 

the Commandments of God!!! 

I have to stop and ask a question of our world today,

 “Why does the world today fight over who has the ‘right’ 

to establish law when the Law has already been established

 by the One that first established The Law 

and has the only True Power to enforce it?”

MAY 17 THE JESUS QUESTIONS JQ#16 “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)

 

MAY 17  THE JESUS QUESTIONS  JQ#16 

“Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?”  (Matthew 15:3)

LIVING FOR JESUS  Daily Prayer   

JESUS, there are so many things to thank You for and to praise You for just from the good hard days work You gave me yesterday. 

When I think of “work” from a “physical” viewpoint it doesn’t make sense how to get a blessing from being in the hot sun sweating and fighting off yellow jackets that sting and hurt so bad but when I think of the “physical” from a “spiritual” viewpoint I see that my blessings are overflowing as I was able to have the physical strength to do the physical labor and that I get to do it in Your beautiful Creation! 

Lord, I come before You again today seeking Your guidance in all that You lay before me and Trust You to give me the “physical” strength to accomplish Your tasks and the “spiritual” strength to give You Praise for Your Provisions!     

AMEN

THE JESUS QUESTIONS

Jesus has just walked on the water and demonstrated to His disciples that He will transfer His Power to those willing to get out of the boat and walk on the water with Him and He also Taught them the

 Truth of God that indeed we “can do all things through Christ Jesus” 

but without Him we will drown in the world! 

That great Lesson was summarized by the writer Matthew as he wrote about the Jesus/Peter encounter where both were walking on the water and Matthew documented that when Peter took note of the world around him instead of keeping his focus on Jesus that Peter began to sink beneath the waves, 

Matthew records how Jesus reacted: 

“and [Peter] beginning to sink … cried out, saying, ‘Lord save me!’ 

and immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Peter

…and when they got back into the boat, the wind ceased.” 

(Matthew 14:30-32) 

Matthew then recorded what our response should be when Jesus stretches out His Hand of Salvation from Heaven to all of us that are drowning in a world of sin:

 “Then those who were in the boat came and worshipped Him, saying,

 ‘Truly You {Jesus} are the Son of God’” 

(Matthew 14:33) 

Matthew continues his summary as he concludes this section 

“When they had crossed over… [and] the men of that place recognized Him, 

they sent out …[and] brought to [Jesus] all who were sick…

[and all who were brought to Him] were made perfectly well.” 

(Matthew 14:34-36) 

So here is Jesus healing the multitudes, demonstrating that by His actions and the “Fruit of His Kingdom Labors” that 

Jesus IS “Truly…the Son of God” 

and yet there are those with a different agenda that refuse to believe the 

“Witness” of the “Good Works of Jesus”. 

Those that believed that Jesus IS the “Son of God”

 were all “made perfectly well” 

and we know that all those people could not have been in the boat with Jesus so their

 healing “Faith” 

had to come from “hearing” about the Mighty Works, 

“Works” that could only be accomplished 

by the Very Son of God Himself 

and the cloud of witnesses was so great that the multitudes 

“believed” and by their 

“Faith in Jesus” they were “healed”! 

So why do we see another group of people who have heard 

the same thing about Jesus want to attack Him? 

We read in Matthew 15:1-2 that once again it is the 

“scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem” that came to Jesus

 but instead of walking on water they were stirring up waves 

as they questioned Jesus: 

“Why do Your  disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?” 

(Matthew 15:2)

 which set the scene for another great 

“Truth of God”

 and demonstrates why

 Jesus is “Truly…the Son of God” 

——— or do you believe that just because you don’t believe 

that somehow your non-belief will have any affect on the Power of God? 

Jesus answered the challenge to His Lordship from the Pharisees just like He addressed the challenge from Peter but with completely different results ——— as soon as His Lordship was challenged with a question from the Pharisees, Jesus immediately answered their question with a Question of His own 

that made the Pharisees look at the 

Truth of God 

that Jesus Teaches 

and not the “lie” that men try to convince each other 

is “best for the common good?” 

——— once again Jesus is making us answer that most important Question

 that every individual must answer in their individual lives:

 “Are you going to Trust God and His Truth 

or are you going to listen to men 

that tell you a “lie”  that they 

mistakenly believe is the truth?”